Rosie’s recipes: Toasty comfort food and a cool dessert

January is a time for new beginnings. Mind you, I don’t do “resolutions,” but I’ve resolved/decided to tackle two dishes I’ve never had before and have always wanted to try — Welsh Rabbit and Baked Alaska.

To me, this would be the Perfect Meal. An appetizer, which is a comfort food in and of itself, no main course, and a straight line to the finish — glorious dessert.

First the appetizer. Is it Welsh Rabbit or Welsh Rarebit? And what exactly is it? The dish originated in the early 1700s in the United Kingdom; however, don’t let that deter you. And it was called “Welsh rabbit” despite there being no meat involved.

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The alternative form, “rarebit,” appeared about 60 years later, the word having no meaning aside from this particular dish.

Among legends, it is suggested that the meat-based name for this meatless dish might have stemmed from Welsh peasants who substituted cheese for unaffordable meat. It is thought to have been an English insult to the Welsh.

Rabbit was the poor Englishman’s meat. The even poorer Welshman’s “meat” was cheese. Another “insult theory” is that it was an Englishman’s jab at the hunting ability of the Welsh. The Welshman failed to bring home a rabbit, thus the family would have to settle for cheese and toast.

Another slur from the condescending English is that the uncivilized Welsh considered the dish fine dining, as good as eating rabbit, meaning they didn’t know what fine dining was, let alone afford it.

How the word “rarebit” came about amounts to more confusion. Perhaps it was an attempt to identify the dish as not having any rabbit to begin with or it might have been an effort to glamorize a simple, humble peasant dish, giving it a hint of the exotic.

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Restaurants began serving the dish and may have changed the name, suggesting a rare bit of something extraordinary, allowing them to charge more for it.

The dessert was originally called “Alaska-Florida” because of the cold ice cream and the hot meringue, and the technique of insulating ice cream with heat-resistant beaten egg whites was created in 1804 by an American physicist and inventor, Benjamin Thompson.

For a bit of back story, Thompson, also known as Count Rumford, was a British spy during the Revolutionary War. A prolific inventor working with the properties of heat, he invented the double boiler, a kitchen range, a drip-type coffee maker, the Rumford fireplace, thermal underwear, and the sous-vide method of food preparation.

At that time, the dessert was called omelette surprise or omelette à la norvégienne (Norwegian omelette). Eventually, it became known as “Baked Alaska,” in celebration of the newly acquired Alaska Territory in 1867.

Credit for baked Alaska is given to French chef Charles Ranhofer of New York city’s Delmonico’s restaurant, who is said to have invented the dessert in commemoration of Seward’s Alaska purchase.

Baked Alaska became known as a dessert for the privileged. Its popularity waned during the austerity of the Victorian era and Depression and it wasn’t until the 1950s, when Alaska became a state, that the dessert enjoyed a renaissance.

Generally, baked Alaska is in the shape of a bombe; however, I’m re-engineering it and assembling a log shape, making it easier to slice and serve.

A baked Alaska has three components. The center is ice cream encased in a flexible cake with the whole enveloped in a layer of meringue. The entire assembly is baked in a 500° oven to brown the billowy meringue and the ice cream remains firm and does not melt. Egg whites form an excellent insulation in that they’re full of tiny air bubbles which conduct heat quite poorly.

My recipe for the cake, a genoise, makes enough to cover two ice cream centers. I’m covering the first base in meringue for the Baked Alaska and saving the second base for later.

Remove ice cream from containers (A quick bath in warm water helps loosen the ice cream.) Cover each tightly in plastic wrap and roll to form a uniform cylinder shape. Place each cylinder in freezer, on end, until completely solid, about 2 hours.

For assembly: Transfer cake to cutting board and, with a serrated knife, cut 2 rectangles out, each approximately 4 ½ x 11 inches. Place ice cream cylinders on each rectangle and wrap cake around ice cream. Cut out a 4-inch cake round and press onto one end of the cylinder. Tightly wrap each cake and ice cream cylinder in plastic and return to freezer vertically on end, for an hour, or until cake is firm.

Place cylinder on cutting board, unwrap, and cut in half lengthwise. Cut another rectangle out of cake to form a base for the halves and place halves on top, ice cream side down and open ends meeting in middle. Wrap tightly in plastic and press cylinders together to close gap between halves. Return to freezer for overnight before covering in meringue.

Now, you have two cake and ice cream cylinders. I’ll be covering one cylinder with meringue and preparing Baked Alaska, saving the other cylinder for later. That way, I have the fixin’s on hand for a quick Baked Alaska anytime in the near future.

Heat oven to 500°. Set wire rack on baking sheet and spray with vegetable oil. Unwrap cake and place on rack. Combine egg whites, sugar, corn syrup, water, and salt in bowl of stand mixer. Place bowl over saucepan filled with an inch or so of simmering water, being sure water doesn’t touch bottom of bowl. Whisking constantly, heat until sugar is dissolved and mixture registers 160°, about 7-8 minutes.

Place bowl in stand mixer fitted with whisk attachment. Beat on medium speed about 5 minutes. Increase speed to high and beat until mixture forms stiff peaks, about another 5 minutes. Beat in vanilla.

Spread meringue over top and sides of cake, creating peaks all over. Bake until slightly browned and crisp, about 5 minutes. Transfer to serving platter. To slice, dip sharp knife into hot water and wipe dry after each cut. Serve immediately.

While the restaurant is closed until March 16, The Weeping Radish in Grandy is using that time to update our menu and retail counter to include new and dynamic products from the butchery. And the lagering tanks are filling up.